I'm a Fellow at the Adam Smith Institute in London, a writer here and there on this and that and strangely, one of the global experts on the metal scandium, one of the rare earths. An odd thing to be but someone does have to be such and in this flavour of our universe I am. I have written for The Times, Daily Telegraph, Express, Independent, City AM, Wall Street Journal, Philadelphia Inquirer and online for the ASI, IEA, Social Affairs Unit, Spectator, The Guardian, The Register and Techcentralstation. I've also ghosted pieces for several UK politicians in many of the UK papers, including the Daily Sport.

Apple Asks For Another $707 Million From Samsung: And The Interesting Bit

Apple Inc has asked for a court order for a permanent U.S. sales ban on Samsung Electronics products alleged to have violated its patents along with additional damages of $707 million on top of the billion-dollar verdict won by the iPhone maker last month.

Having achieved victory in the Californian patent trial against Samsung Apple is now asking for further damages. Interest on the damages already awarded, damages for the continuing sales that are ongoing and so on. However, here’s what I thought was the interesting part:

“The harm to Apple was deliberate, not accidental,” Apple attorneys said in court papers filed Sept. 21 in the U.S. District Court in San Jose, California. Samsung “willfully diluted its trade dress, taking billions in sales in the fast- growing U.S. smartphone market at a key moment in the transition between feature phones and smartphones,” attorneys said.

I’m not surprised that this is what they’re thinking, it’s just interesting to see the point being made openly. This isn’t a fight about who sells what telephone hardware: it’s a fight about who gets to dominate the future ecosystem.

Every so often we get to a break in a technology. When the incumbents find themselves faced with disruptive insurgents. Examples abound: the move from horses to cars meant that those providing energy for transport found that their incumbency protected them not one whit. For that energy for travel moved from hay and oats, or perhaps teams of horses, to the provision of petrol. So there was no value any longer in that supply chain that provided horses, hay and oats. And no incumbency value either: that you had such a chain, that an insurgent would have to spend a lot of capital to build one, didn’t help you either.

Here we’ve got this move from feature phones to smartphones. Nokia and RIM were perhaps the incumbents in that earlier world. Apple clearly faces competition from Android in the smartphone world. And the battle isn’t just to make sure that the current generation of phones sold come from Apple. It’s to make sure that the dominant ecosystem is Apple’s. That’s what they’re pointing to in this “at a key moment in the transition”. They want to make sure that competition (as they allege from copying) doesn’t allow a second provider. For it is at this very moment of technological transition that many forms have an opportunity to establish a market beachhead. Once we’ve made the transition, to the point where the smartphone market is largely a replacement one rather than users adopting one or other design for the first time, then it will be very much more difficult for a new market entrant to successfully compete.

That’s really what the battle is about at present. To a reasonable level of accuracy those who go with one smartphone ecosystem or another, Android, Windows, Apple, are likely to stay with it through their lives. And this transition point is precisely when an entire generation of customers is up for grabs. Something that’s unlikely to happen again if truth be told, this ability to gain a lifelong customer without actually having to persuade them away from another ecosystem.

That’s why the fight is being fought so aggressively. There’s decades of profits riding on who gets how many of this first generation of smartphone customers now.

Rather like there was with Apple and Microsoft‘s Windows for PCs those decades ago. And I have a feeling that’s a comparison they ruminate on in Cupertino. Along with a “Not this time!”.

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This would be just a competition face-off except that Apple does NOT produce the best cell phone. I bought the iPhone 4 when it first came out; a great piece of computer technology but the cell phone could not compete with my Motorola RAZR, so I returned the iPhone to AT&T and still use my Motorola.

Now I’m ready to replace the Motorola RAZR; I don’t really want a smart phone but there are few acceptable alternatives in the currently available cell phones. I’m not thrilled with supporting either Apple or Google, given there interest in tracking my every activity to sell information I would rather keep private.

And, although I use a Macintosh laptop and have an iuPod and an iPad, I am less enthusiastic in supporting Apple’s constant attempts to control my technology environment.

it will be interesting to see how comprehensively Samsung takes Apple apart over the many LTE infringes that must surely be lurking in their new phone, Samsung after all own many, many patents for this crucial technology.

And of course it is also worth pointing out that Apple have only been successful in American courts, Samsung have won overseas, now why would that be?

I hate the iphone flat out I think its overpriced and ugly and small .i dont like anything made by apple . I love my android phones made by htc never dies, never resets, screen is bright and clear, and it works for me in every way .

siri is useless my android phone does not talk back to me but does all the things siri does except for the annoying part IT DOES NOT TALK BACK.

and one more thing I like is that when i get a new phone there is actually a real difference between phones.

If the next person with a iphone comes and tells me how good there phone is I am going to smash it .

I am neither american Nor Korean. I can see that nearly 50% Americans or the people who comment here are blind to the blatant copying by Samsung And Take advantage of a great american company that produces great products. It is the same feeling when I see that nearly 47% americans support GOP, and don’t have the intelligence to understand how they are destroying America. In 2004 I watched in disbelief when Americans re-elected Bush – came to conclusion that majority of americans are of low intelligence, dont have any logical thinking, rather blindly believe what others say.

Dont you ever stop and think why the Entire PC industry and the entire Mobile Industry copies Apple in every single way ? I see Samsung Ads for Galaxy Tab and see them talking about Innovation, where was that innovation before apple introduced the ipad ?

Bottom line is, when you write hateful things about Apple, It only shows the commenters stupidity.

Shame on you Apple & Jobs’ wish of thermonuclear war! Shame on you Samsung for just innovating, not transcendently & iconoclastically innovating! Shame on you The Court, for shortsighted interpretation & siding with those with controls & money!

You are quite wrong about what Apple wants. Apple will be happy to have a strong competitor in smartphones. And there are others: Windows 8 phones, Blackberries, Nokia phonens, Sony phones.

What Apple seeds to stop is people diluting its brand and costing the company sales with immediate copying of key Apple technologies that make the iPhone a best-in-class phone. The most important technologies, which enable high levels of fuidity and accuracy in touch devices, have not been copied because Android is built differently and cannot provide such an experience. But other exceedingly important technologies that enable competitors to ape the Apple experience have defied the rules and stolen Apple technology.

Copying Apple allows competitors to achieve user interface simplicity, even in complex tasks, comparable to Apple’s. Apple achieved this simplicity through many thousands of hours of hard work by very smart people. It should not be free to competitors.